DDS 3 Tape Drive Problems

[Paul Perkin]

Hello all,

I've recently bought a SCSI Seagate DDS3 (python 04106-xxx) tape drive and
have a few problems:
1) When backing up data the drive DOES not compress data, even though in
device manager the properties on the drive show that compression is enabled.
It doesn't even compress standard bmp files which are massively
compressible.
2) When backing up data I can only fit 10.5 - 11gb of data on a tape,
the native capacity is 12gb. This is incredibly annoying as it essentially
halves my storage capacity!

I have cleaned the drive with the drive cleaning tape regularly. I am using
the standard windows backup utility, notably I'm running the drive in a
WinXP Pro workstation (it came from a server and I am unaware to whether it
was working then or not) so using WinXP backup. I have also tried Veritas
Backup Exec 8.5 to no avail - the same problem occurs.

If anyone could point me in the right direction I'd be appreciative, if the
drive is faulty then I shall have to endeavour to find a new one, but if
there's anything I can do to solve the problem I'd be grateful. I have
re-installed the operating system once and that didn't solve the problems.
I have tried backing with just SP1 installed in XP as well as all the latest
updates but no joy.

Thanks for any help!

Paul Perkin

 

[Yves Leclerc]

The standard backup program may not support the advanced feature of the SCSI
tape drive. I would look at a third party backup software. I know the
BackupMyPc by Stomp work quite well in XP. The software was originally
Seagate Backup Exec --> Veritas Backup Exec Desktop.

Y.

 

[Paul Perkin]

Hi Yves,

I've tried Backup Exec 8.5 (or 7.5, can't remember which off hand) with the
same results. The windows XP backup program can read the drive (I have both
backed up and restored data using it) however it does not use the full
capacity of a single tape nor does it use compression.

I'm beginning to think this is a hardware problem and I've got a duff
drive....

Thanks,

Paul